


you love him.

by esljackzimmermann (QuietLittleVoices)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: First Kiss, Future Fic, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 12:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4876081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietLittleVoices/pseuds/esljackzimmermann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you want coffee?” Jack asks quietly, hesitant to break the careful stillness.<br/>Eric opens his eyes, looking wild like he’s been pulled from a dream. “It’s… eleven thirty, Jack.”<br/>He shrugs. “Decaf, then.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you love him.

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a conversation with Justine, tumblr user bittyhoney, and You R In Love by Taylor Swift. However, the song on the radio in the fic is Fearless by Taylor Swift.  
> Title from the 24th part of 'You Are Jeff' by Richard Siken - 'You're in a car with a beautiful boy and you won't tell him that you love him but you love him'.

They aren’t together.

It’s not that they think their… affections are misplaced, not anymore - certain events (the Fourth of July in Georgia and fireworks on a hillside, Christmas in Montreal and skating on the pond, New Years’ Eve as the countdown reached zero) had made it clear that they were both on the same page there.

It didn’t matter.

Jack wasn’t ready to be the first player to come out and he wasn’t about to force Eric to be a dirty secret. And Eric had agreed, forehead pressed to Jack’s. (He’d followed up with ‘I hate this’ but Jack tried not to remember to heartbroken look on his face. It flashed behind his eyelids every night, anyway).

Nights like this, it feels like that conversation never happened. Eric gets to Providence by bus or train or getting a ride from someone on the team with a car and it feels like they’re still walking a line of ‘does he or doesn’t he’, the line of ‘friends or something else, something bigger than we want to name’.

He’s staying for the long weekend and Jack doesn’t have a practise the next day, so he drives them around Providence as the numbers on the dashboard clock flip slowly upwards. Jack looks over and watches the streetlights reflect off Eric’s hair as he bends to fiddle with the radio. The crinkling of static and random bursts of noise fill the car.

“Why’d I leave my auxiliary cable in the Haus?” Eric mutters, before finding a station playing what sounds like Taylor Swift (and Jack’s positive he can at least identify her and Beyoncé now) and making a delighted and triumphant noise.  He leans back in the passenger seat and closes his eyes, tapping his hand along to the beat and humming softly.

Jack looks back to the road and clenches his hands on the wheel. His knuckles go white and he loosens his grip again. Next to him, Eric is saying ‘You’re so cool, run your hands through your hair…’ softly - not quite singing it, but it’s not regular speech either. Like the beat of a poem.

“Do you want coffee?” Jack asks quietly, hesitant to break the careful stillness.

Eric opens his eyes, looking wild like he’s been pulled from a dream. “It’s… eleven thirty, Jack.”

He shrugs. “Decaf, then.”

There’s no response, at first, and Jack looks over to find Eric just watching him contemplatively. “Okay,” Eric says finally. “Let’s get coffee.”

It’s closer to midnight by the time they find a diner with a neon sign in the window proudly declaring ‘Open 24-hours!’ Jack shuts the car off and the radio stops suddenly, sending them back into silence.

There’s a couple in the furthest booth from the door sharing a plate of fries and a man at the bar with a burger meal in front of him, his shoulders hunched.

“I’ll be right with ya in a second!” the waitress calls out to them from behind the bar. “Take any seat you’d like.”

They choose a booth somewhere between the couple feeding each other and the door. Jack knocks their knees together under the table. When the waitress comes over, they order two decaf coffees and a piece of peach pie to share, because it’s the one she recommended when Eric asked.

She fills their cups first and they add their creams and sugars, then she comes back and puts the pie on the counter directly between them. She winks at them before laying two forks on the plate.

They each take up a fork and alternate between bites of pie and sips of coffee.

“This isn’t nearly as good as my mother’s,” Eric says.

Jack smiled. “Would you admit if it was?”

“There is nothing that would be better than my mother’s pie.”

Jack didn’t doubt that. Instead of answering, he just took another bite of the pie and grinned around it.

They started talking about mundane things; how Eric’s second semester as a Junior was going, how Jack’s season was going, how their friends were doing. Small talk. The kind Jack had always feared and hated at parties but loved when it was with Eric.

The man at the bar leaves before they’re done their slice of pie. The couple leaves before they finish their coffee. When they’re done, they just get refills and keep talking.

Eric is the first to yawn. He checks his phone, which has lain face-down on the table top for the entire night. “It’s almost two in the morning,” he says.

Jack insists on paying the bill and they leave with a cheery wave to the waitress and an empty promise to be back.

The radio pops back to life and there’s an upbeat song on. Eric nearly bounces in his seat, singing along loudly. He rolls the window down and let’s the wind hit his face and Jack can’t help but think about how beautiful he looks.

Eric rests his hand on top of Jack’s on the gearshift without looking over.

They haven’t talked about this much. But it’s enough.

And then they’re back at Jack’s apartment and changing into pyjamas - Eric in boxers and the Samwell Men’s Hockey shirt that he got when he was a frog with a hole worn into the collar and a few more by the hem at his waist, and Jack just in simple drawstring pants.

It takes a while before either of them falls asleep and when they do they’re curled towards each other like a pair of parenthesis, heads bowed close.

Jack wakes up while the moon is still up, pouring through his windows and casting the bedroom into stark contrast. White sheets, white walls, black floor. And then he notices Eric, up on an elbow, watching him.

He wants to ask what’s wrong but he doesn’t, just watches him back, and it’s like New Year’s Eve again - I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry - and Jack almost has to look away.

Finally, when Jack is just about to burst from the tension probably only he feels, Eric whispers, “You’re my best friend.”

And Jack thinks that he’s been wrong all along, that maybe leaning up wouldn’t be the worst thing. He thinks maybe it could be the best.

So he does, and Eric smiles against his mouth. His hand cards through Eric’s hair the way he’s wanted to all night. The problems are still there, but it’s kind of perfect.

 

 


End file.
